


You're the Hero (Sandwich)

by grapehyasynth



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Crack, Cursed!Fitz, F/M, Like as I was writing this I was like "wtf am i even doing", MetamorFitz, Metamorphosis, Not even a little bit not a crackfic, Sorceress!Jemma, Total crackfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-30
Updated: 2016-07-30
Packaged: 2018-07-27 15:42:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7624414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grapehyasynth/pseuds/grapehyasynth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fitz is a grumpy, perpetually hungry prince. Jemma's a fledgling sorceress who takes him a little too seriously (and gets a little too irritated) when he tells her to make him a sandwich. </p><p>So she does. She literally turns him into a sandwich. </p><p>Blame notapepper.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You're the Hero (Sandwich)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [notapepper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/notapepper/gifts).



> [please read in a dramatic, audiobook English accent]

Leopold Fitz was a grumpy, perpetually hungry prince. Left to his own devices while his distant father ruled the kingdom, he would morosely roam the highlands or the dank halls of their castle, looking for company.

His only friends were his father’s advisor Lance and some of the servants in the kitchens. He was generally more considerate and fair-minded than most nobles, so they tolerated him getting in the way and tasting the soups before they were ready.

His very best friend was Maid Jemma. Bright, pretty, perpetually positive despite spending her entire youth scrubbing floors and fireplaces and tolerating Fitz’s every whim.

Well, more than tolerating. They were well-matched, and Jemma, who’d been orphaned when quite young, found herself smiling more when Fitz was around than ever before. It was _nice_ to have a constant companion.

But Fitz, for all his progressive attitudes, was still a product of his times and family, and sometimes he would forget himself.

“Jemma, I’m _hungry_ ,” he pouted one afternoon, shortly after his nineteenth birthday. He flopped forward across the large wooden kitchen table as if so famished he couldn’t move one inch more.

“And what do you expect me to do about that?” Jemma asked patiently, pausing in her chores to swipe at her sweaty face. The motion left a streak of soot on her forehead.

“Make me a sandwich!” Fitz commanded, thumping his fist on the table.

“Hmm. Just wiggle my fingers and say an incantation and -- poof?”

“Yeah, _poof_!” Fitz repeated eagerly.

Jemma sighed and reached into her bucket, withdrawing a handful of ash. She blew it towards him, and as he ducked his head to dry to dodge the floating particles, he could’ve sworn there was a flash of green light.

“What was that?” he gasped.

“Magic!” Jemma teased, waggling her eyebrows. She shook her head and went back to her work.

“Right,” Fitz snorted.

No sandwich materialized, so he forgot about the whole incident.

Until that night.

For Maid Jemma was, in fact, a sorceress. And not just any sorceress, but a sorceress easily irritated by people lording their privilege and status over others and expecting preferential treatment.

(It was a rather specific but understandable sort of irritation.)

So when Fitz ordered her to “make me a sandwich!”, she was quite zealous in fulfilling his wish.

He first noticed it when dithering about his personal laboratory, tinkering with a few of his dashed inventions before retiring to bed. Just as the sun slipped below the horizon, he felt a change come over him.

It was as if his body was no longer his own. He could feel the limits of his physical being, but his hands couldn’t quite get purchase on the edge of the table near him and he saw the ceiling falling away as he crumpled onto his chair.

He stayed there for a moment, panting, before he pushed himself up.

Or tried. Because nothing happened.

And what was that smell? Like... pastrami and egg and the barest whiff of dill.

Fitz tried to shift around to seek the source of the smell, but there was nothing for it. He was decidedly immobile.

As he got used to his position, though, he became aware of new sensations.

His skin felt soft and fluffy, his hair stiff and grainy. Where normally he could feel the (admittedly pathetic) muscles of his abdomen, instead there was... something crunchy, something cool and moist, something a bit rubbery but not in an unpleasant way.

No.

 _No_.

 _Make me a sandwich, Jemma_.

“CRAP ON A CRACKER!” he shouted -- or he would have, if he had a mouth and wasn’t, well, a sandwich.

Lance appeared several long minutes later, likely to look for Fitz when he was late to his nightly undressing.

“Hey, bud, have you seen Prince Fitzy?” he murmured to the bloodhound lounging by the door.

The dog whined and pushed its head into Lance’s hand as he stroked its ears.

“Hmm, he left his snack behind. That’s odd.” Lance straightened and crossed the room to the chair. Fitz tried desperately to wiggle, to cry out, to make his layers of toppings dance or in some other way get across the message that the sandwich was, in fact, a man, but Lance scooped it up and offered it to the dog. “Want a bite?”

The dog sniffed at Fitz and whined again.

“Yeah, you’re probably right. He’s got weird taste, it’d probably make you sick.” Lance brought Fitz up to his nose inhaled deeply before coughing all over Fitz’s top bread. “Blimey, that’s strong. What is that, pastrami?” He lifted up a few of Fitz’s layers and if he’d had the proper body parts, Fitz would’ve squeaked and thrown a hand over his meat, as it were. “Eugh. I’ll just leave this to Fitz.”

He set the sandwich on the table, out of the dog’s reach, and strode back out of the room.

Fitz spent a long, lonely night shivering in the draft through the open window. Flies came to explore him and he could do nothing to ward away their probing little legs; a trickle of mustard oozed down his side and made him want terribly to sneeze, but he could neither wipe it away or locate a mechanism through which to find release for the sensation.

Somehow, blessedly, come sunrise he was back to himself. He cried with delight -- real, human tears, not trickles of condiment -- and touched every part of his body to make sure he was really there. Hands, feet, chest, eyeballs, other balls -- everything in order.

He changed quickly (the process involved some rather awkward removal of mustard from unfortunate crevices) and hurried down to the kitchen.

“Want a sandwich, milord?” Phyllis, the cook, asked without looking up.

“What?” he said sharply, clutching the edge of the counter. “What did you say?”

She stared at him. “D’you want a sandwich? Breakfast’s not for another two hours but you’re looking a tad peckish.”

“A sandwich?” He looked down and saw the bread she was slicing with a massive knife. “No, thank you Phyllis,” he replied faintly, backing away. “No, that just seems wrong.”

“Then what d’you want?” she demanded, bored.

“Have you seen Maid Jemma?”

“Have you not heard, milord? Left in the night with not a word, just a note. Gone on to try her hand at the family business, it said.”

Gone. Maid Jemma had gone. The notion of never hearing her laugh again sent a twinge of sharp pain through his chest, but it was tempered by the knowledge that she may have taken the curse with her.

The relief lasted only til sundown that night, when he once again became a pastrami and egg sandwich on whole wheat.

He set out the very next morning with a simple pack on his back, determined to find the sorceress who had cursed him to this strange if tasty hell.

For many months he wandered the land, searching for Jemma, eating only foods which didn’t remind him of his own nightly layers. Each night he rolled out a little napkin, stood in the middle of it, and put a breadbox on his head like a hat. When the transformation occurred, he would be well-protected from the elements and scavenging creatures.

It was not really living, but it was doughable. _Doable_ , damnit.

At last, when he’d just begun to despair of ever reversing his situation, he stumbled wearily into a sun-dappled valley, in the middle of which rose a great tower which he recognized from the awed tales the villagers recounted of a great and lovely sorceress. (Of course _they_ liked Jemma. None of _them_ had ever been turned into so much as biscuit.)

He staggered towards the tower and fell to his knees before it, weeping in relief. “Jemma!” he called, voice croaking. “Jemma, I implore you--”

“Well, well, well,” chuckled a voice from a window on high. “If it isn’t Prince Wonderbread himself.”

“It’s whole wheat!” he snapped. “And I’m not _that_ pasty!”

“Yes, you are.” Jemma appeared in the window, arms crossed, looking stupidly smug.

“No, I’m not, I’ve been getting very tan these past weeks--”

“What setting?”

“What?”

“What setting?” she repeated patiently. “On the toaster, what setting have you been using to tan your buns?”

“That’s not funny!”

“On the contrary, I think I have a rather _rye_ wit.”

“No,” Fitz said firmly. “No sandwich puns. That’s where I draw the line.”

“Somehow I can’t _mustard_ up the pity to care.”

“You--” He scrambled to his feet, wanting to shake his fist and curse but seeing the sun slip ever lower and knowing he had not much time. “Change me back, Jemma. That’s all I ask. I’ll never be rude to a woman again.”

“You do seem to be in a bit of a _pickle_ . I wouldn’t _relish_ going through the same experience.”

“You’re a right nightmare, you know that?”

“If you want to be released from this curse, you’ll have to do a better job of _buttering_ me up.”

“Please?” Fitz begged faintly, gazing up at her. He could almost see her expression soften, like liverwurst spread over fresh toast. “I can’t eat, I can’t sleep. My crust is getting soggy and my lettuce has wilted. I need your help.”

She regarded him for a long time, the shadows thrown by the setting sun preventing him from seeing the emotions in her eyes, before she sighed and uncrossed her arms. “I’m coming down.”

He hurried to the door in the side of the tower and waited breathlessly for her arrival.

“Before you say anything,” she began as soon as she opened the door, “I’m not sure I can lift the curse.”

“ _What_?!”

“Hold onto your hot sauce. No need to be so sauerkraut about it. I know this is no picnic, but --”

“Jemma.”

“I’m new at this, Fitz,” she admitted, gesturing with one hand and setting off a series of purple sparks as she did so. “Sorcery is in my blood, but I never knew my parents, or any family -- I had no one to train me. When I cursed you, it was a reaction, an instinct. I’m sure there _is_ a way to undo the curse, but... I don’t know what it is. Before you become a raging Muenster,” she added quickly, catching his hand as he spun away in agony, “I should tell you that I _can_ help with the lettuce and the crust. And given time, I believe I will find a cure.”

“And what do I do in the meantime? Just roll over and-- Damnit, you’ve got me doing it too.”

“You can stay, if you’d like. Help me perfect my art -- work beside me, as _equals_ , as I concoct new potions and explore the craft.”

“But I’m not a wizard.”

“Well-spotted,” Jemma chuckled. “You’re a ‘wich.”

“Fucking--”

“I promise to cut back on the sandwich puns if you stay,” she blurted out, and he realized, from the way she squeezed his hand -- with the gentleness of someone coaxing a blob of mayo out of a bottle -- that she was as lonely as he was. As misunderstood, as lost, as ready for company. “Maybe together, we can fix this.”

“Okay,” he said softly, stepping towards her. “I’ll help you.”

“Then _lettuce_ begin.”

Fitz groaned but followed her into the tower.

“Why’d you have to make me this _particular_ sandwich, anyway?” he grumbled as they climbed the winding stairs.

“Don’t you like pastrami and egg?”

“ _I_ do, but it turns out it’s a bit of an alienating choice among others.”

“Hmm. I’ll remember that for next time.”

“No!” he exclaimed urgently. “There will _be_ no next time, Jemma! No more sandwich curses, on me or anyone else.”

“But if you could be _any_ sandwich, what would you choose?”

Fitz stuck out his lower lip as he thought. “Prosciutto... Buffalo mozzarella...”

“Spoken like a true member of the aristocracy,” Jemma snorted.

“And pesto aioli,” he plowed on.

“Pesto aioli?”

“Just a hint.”

“Hmm. I’ll have to try that.” She glanced back to see his petrified face and snickered. “Once you’re cured, of course. Wouldn’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

Sunset was upon them, so Jemma showed him to a guest room and thoughtfully laid out a breadboard for him. She even erected a little tent over it so that once he shrank to sandwich size he could still have a canopy bed of sorts.

It was the best night’s sleep he’d gotten since the curse began.

It was awkward, at first, to navigate the small space of Jemma’s tower. He had to learn when to jump out of the way of her still-erratic enchantments and accepting his position as her partner and equal after years of superiority was humbling.

But Jemma was kind and patient, as she had always been. She spent hours every day researching food-related curses and carefully testing potential counter-curses. She changed her entire diet to account for Fitz’s newly-acquired aversions to anything which might end up on a sandwich. She controlled herself with the jokes for the most part, though once she asked him, “Why are sandwiches like ogres?” and he considered leaving.

But after a few months had gone by, he barely noticed his sandwichhood anymore. Even had he been cured (that term brought up thoughts of ham, which got complicated), he wouldn’t have wanted to leave anyway. Jemma was amazing and fascinating and curious and he was certain, given time, she could be the most powerful sorceress in the land. And no one would wield that responsibility with greater grace and mercy.

She let him have a corner of her workspace in which to continue his own, less magical experiments, and to his surprise she found them every bit as riveting as he found her enchantments. They taught each other,  starting every day at dawn so they could squeeze in as much time and conversation as possible before Fitz became a mute entree once more.

Thus passed ten of the happiest years of Fitz’s life. He hardly cared if they ever found a counter-curse. Certainly being fully human again would afford desirable perks: So long as he remained part man, part sandwich, Jemma would never consider him anything more than a friend, however hard he fallen for her. (Besides, even if she returned his affections, the logistics were impossible. Forget the scandalous ‘prince marries sorceress’ headlines -- ‘woman marries sandwich’? She’d be liable to roll over onto him one night and smush all his guts out. Talk about a messy divorce.)

So he kept his slices together and said nothing.

But forces beyond their control were brewing to disrupt their delicious friendship. As if in perfect counterpoint to Fitz’s happiness, the land fell deeper and deeper into drought and long winters which wrought devastation upon the kingdom. Peasants and aristocrats alike were starving, and Jemma and Fitz, in their secluded tower, were so far from the few remaining centers of agriculture that their food supply slowed to a trickle, and then to nothing.

“Can’t you magic us some food?” Fitz grumbled. They were sprawled on the floor of their shared workspace, almost too weak to move.

“You know that’s not how it works.” Her head lolled over to look at him, all the fire gone from her voice.

“Jemma,” he whispered, pushing himself up onto one forearm and leaning towards her.

“Yes, Fitz?”

“Jemma, you’re going to have to eat me.”

“Fitz, I think anatomically speaking, _you’d_ have to eat _me--_ Though why _now_ , of all times--”

“No, I -- Tonight, when I transform, you have to eat me. Thanks to your preservative enchantment I’m as fresh as the day you made me.”

“Fitz!” Jemma croaked, scrambling onto her knees to face him, eyes swimming with tears. “That’s ridiculous! We need a new plan. I’m not _eating_ you--”

“If I can give you life for another day or two, it will be worth it.”

“Why would you make me do this?” she cried, clutching at the collar of his shirt. “You’re my best friend in the world!”

“Yeah, and you’re more than that, Jemma,” he breathed.

She inhaled sharply, and then, tears streaming down her cheeks, she leaned forward, pressing her lips to his.

He gasped against her mouth. _If this is how I die, it will not have been a cursed existence after all_. Hoping he tasted nothing like mustard and pastrami, he circled Jemma’s waist with his arms and pulled her closer, expending the last of his energy to kiss her properly.

When at long last they parted, panting heavily, Jemma chuckled and pressed her forehead to his. 

“I’ve wondered for a long time what it would be like,” she murmured, stroking his cheek with unbearable softness, “to take a bit of this manwich.”

“Promise me you’ll eat me,” he persisted, determined to stay focused despite the little kisses she was placing all over his face.

“I won’t,” she cried, shaking her head furiously. “Fitz, I love you -- you’re not leaving me _mushroom_ to work with -- oh god, why can’t I stop with these terrible puns -- I can’t possibly--”

“You have to eat me!” he begged, but he knew by now the patterns of the sun and he could see his time had arrived. So he closed his eyes and waited for the change.

It never came.

When he opened his eyes Jemma was still there, still cradling him, except he didn’t fit in the palm of her hand. There was not even a whiff of dill and the only moisture came from their mingled tears.

“Jemma,” he murmured, tilting her chin up. “Jemma, Jemma, I’m still here.”

“You’re--” She gasped, glanced outside at the darkness, and then, looking back at him, ran her hands reverently over his arms. “The curse, Fitz! We’ve broken it.”

“You mean all I had to do was make a tongue sandwich with you and I’d be free? I would’ve done that _years_ ago.”

“True love’s bite,” Jemma grinned.

Fitz’s excitement dimmed as he remembered their larger predicament. “Fitting, I suppose, that we’ll die here together,” he murmured, tucking her under his chin.

“Before we head up to the great big deli in the sky,” she agreed.

They held each other for a few long moments, sleep creeping up on them as their hearts slowed.

But what neither had considered as they savored the delicacy of new-old love was that other curses may also have been lifted.

“Hello?” a voice called from below the tower. “Hello, anyone home? We’ve come with some emergency rations!”

“Is that a hallucination?” Jemma mumbled against Fitz’s neck.

“Definitely.”

“We’ve got pesto aioli!” the voice continued.

Fitz’s head jerked up. “You don’t think--”

“The famine is ended too?”

“We should at least check it out.”

They helped each other down the stairs, their hands bound together like peanut butter and jelly. Standing outside the tower were dozens of peasants bearing the finest crops from the impossible explosion that had occurred across the land in the last hour. Having heard about the plight of the sorceress and her devoted companion, they had hurried at once to bring them life-giving vittles.

“How can it be?” Fitz marveled as cheeses and sausages and tomatoes were pressed into their hands.

“Sounds like magic,” Jemma chortled as she took a tentative bite from a pumpernickel roll. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she moaned. “Oh, Fitz, you have to try this."

“You don’t think it’s a bit... cannibalistic?” he asked warily.

“Just eat it.”

They learned from the villager that in the very instant that they had shared their first sweet kiss, not only was the spell on Fitz broken, but the linked curse under which his father’s kingdom had been suffering was ended too.

“Our love saved the kingdom,” Jemma sighed sometime later, sated and happy.

“So, when you said all that stuff, about--” He gestured nervously between them. “I mean, you were starving and exhausted--”

“I was as clear-headed then as I’ve ever been,” Jemma said firmly, knocking a piece of pie out of his hand and pulling him in for a fervent kiss to demonstrate her point.

“Right,” he panted when she released him. “Good.”

Glancing around to make sure the villagers weren’t watching too closely, Jemma leaned over to his ear and gave the lobe a gentle nip. “What was that you were saying earlier about eating each other?” she breathed. “Wanna show me your grinder? Your submarine? Your hot dog?”

“A hot dog is _not_ a sandwich.”

“Of course it is!”

“Please, Jemma,” Fitz scoffed. “Take it from the sandwich.”

And they lived happily ever after, both convinced that their love was the best thing since sliced bread.

  


**Author's Note:**

> I DON'T EVEN KNOW
> 
> accepting all sandwich puns below
> 
> find me on tumblr?!?


End file.
